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Europe | 17 July 2025

Joint Briefing Series: Recommendations to the EU and the UK on fishing opportunities
Europe
Fisheries & Seafood

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Joint Briefing Series: Recommendations to the EU and the UK on fishing opportunities

This Briefing Series, supported by the 29 undersigned organisations (including environmental NGOs and recreational representatives), is designed to assist the responsible decision-makers in the European Union (the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the Member States) and the United Kingdom (the UK Government and devolved administrations) in managing fishing opportunities in a way that: 

  • Finally ends overfishing, 
  • Significantly contributes to restoring and/or maintaining all fish stocks above healthy levels and to minimising levels of incidental catches, and  
  • Safeguards marine ecosystem functioning and resilience, also in light of mounting pressures like climate change. 

Too often past fisheries decisions to continue overfishing and delay or prevent recovery of fish populations have been taken based on the flawed justification that this is in the interest of fishers. The opposite is the case. Continuing to let poor decisions on fishing opportunities undermine stock recovery and erode already fragile ecosystems, jeopardises the future of fisheries and coastal communities as well as access to sustainable seafood for current and future generations. 

Therefore, in order to ensure that fishing opportunities support thriving fisheries and coastal communities while safeguarding ocean health, resilience and productivity, we call on decision-makers to follow all of our recommendations across the entire Briefing Series.  

The Series consists of 11 Briefings covering the following topics related to the setting of fishing opportunities: 

  1. Cover Briefing: Key recommendations on setting fishing opportunities 

  2. Context and legal framework 

  3. “Best available” is not good enough - addressing shortcomings in the current scientific advice 

  4. Shared fish stocks 

  5. Fishing opportunities in an ecosystem context 

  6. Mixed fisheries considerations 

  7. The fishing effort regime in the Western Mediterranean Sea 

  8. Landing obligation challenges 

  9. Depleted stocks with zero or very low catch advice 

  10. Stocks not managed by a TAC 

  11. Deep-sea stocks 

Background: Over the years, the NGOs working on fishing opportunities have been providing a range of annually updated recommendations for different sea basins and groups of species. Many of our key recommendations and concerns are cross-cutting and do not change from year to year. For 2025 onwards, we have consolidated these points into this Briefing Series which is intended to remain valid for years to come. Please note that Briefing 7 contains fewer logos as not all organisations are active in the Mediterranean, whereas Briefing 3 is additionally endorsed by the Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), European Anglers Alliance (EAA), Baltic Salmon Fund and Baltic Salmon Rivers Association. The Series is complemented by bespoke regionally or topically specific recommendations as appropriate which can be found here.